Economic Reconstruction Union

Economic Reconstruction Union
Leader Alfred Loritz
Founded 1945
Dissolved 1953
Ideology Right-wing populism

The Economic Reconstruction Union (Wirtschaftliche Aufbau-Vereinigung or WAV) was a German political party that was active immediately after the Second World War. Although usually translated into English as the Economic Reconstruction Union[1][2][3] it is also sometimes known as the Union for Economic Reconstruction,[4][5] the Economic Reconstruction Association,[6][7] or the Economic Reconstruction Party.[8]

Formation

The WAV, which existed only in Bavaria, was established in 1945 by the Munich lawyer Alfred Loritz.[4] It was officially licensed as a political party by the occupation forces on 8 December 1945.[9] The party programmes was populist and was in some ways simply a support for its demagogic leader as it had a very limited policy base beyond support for federalism.[4] Due to its anti-liberal stance the group has been characterised as radical right wing populist party by Betz and Immerfall.[10] Like the later All-German Bloc/League of Expellees and Deprived of Rights the WAV's main support base was amongst internal expellees and it had little support amongst native Bavarians.[4] It also sought to reach out to demobilised soldiers and small-time former Nazi Party officials with only perfunctory connections to ideological Nazism who saw themselves as the victims of denazification plans.[11]

Into the Bundestag

The party secured representation in the Landtag of Bavaria in 1946.[6] However the WAV went into decline as its lack of coherent policy and disaffection with Loritz's heavy-handed style of leadership led to around half of the party's local branches having been disbanded by 1948.[4] In the 1948 local elections the demoralised party gained only 1.7% of the vote.[12] Nevertheless, the party contested the Bavarian seats in the West German federal election, 1949 and captured 14.4% of the vote to win twelve seats.[4] As a part of an agreement Loritz signed with the Passau-based refugee organisation the New Citizens Alliance half of the party's candidates were refugees and as a result they gained widespread support in those constituencies with the highest number of refugees.[2] This group, led by the radical nationalist Gunther Goetzendorff, had been barred by the American authorities from participating in the 1949 election and so worked with the WAV for convenience.[12] The combined group, under the WAV banner, was a "radical nationalist party".[13]

Decline

The 1949 election represented the high-water mark of the WAV, which went into steep decline thereafter. Their vote collapsed in the 1950 election to the Landtag of Bavaria, with the 2.8% vote share obtained falling some distance short of the 5% required to enter the Assembly.[4] By that October the party within the Bundestag began to disintegrate when four of its members left to form a new group for refugees associated with the Centre Party.[14] In December 1951 a further group of six deputies left to join the German Party and when another joined the Deutsche Reichspartei soon afterwards it left Loritz as the WAV's sole deputy.[14] Worse was to come in 1952 when the party contested the municipal elections and captured only 0.3% of the vote.[15]

No WAV candidates were put forward for the 1953 federal election and the party was not heard of again.[14]

References

  1. ↑ Gilad Margalit, Guilt, Suffering, and Memory: Germany Remembers Its Dead of World War II, Indiana University Press, 2010, p. XI
  2. 1 2 Frank Biess, Mark Roseman, Hanna Schissler, Conflict, Catastrophe and Continuity: Essays on Modern German History, Berghahn Books, 2007, p. 227
  3. ↑ David F. Patton, Out of the East: From PDS to Left Party in Unified Germany, SUNY Press, 2011, p. 17
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Alfred Grosser, Germany in Our Time, Penguin Books, 1971, p. 252
  5. ↑ Noel D. Cary, The Path to Christian Democracy: German Catholics and the Party System from Windthorst to Adenauer, Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 288
  6. 1 2 Margalit, Guilt, Suffering, and Memory, p. 189
  7. ↑ Jose Raymund Canoy, The Discreet Charm of the Police State: The Landpolizei and the Transformation of Bavaria, 1945-1965, BRILL, 2007, p. 65
  8. ↑ Mark S. Milosch, Modernizing Bavaria: The Politics of Franz Josef Strauss and the CSU, 1949-1969, Berghahn Books, 2006, p. xiv
  9. ↑ Rebecca Boehling, A Question of Priorities: Democratic Reform and Economic Recovery in Postwar Germany, Berghahn Books, 1998, p. 195
  10. ↑ Hans-Georg Betz, Stefan Immerfall, The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, p. 95
  11. ↑ Ian Connor, Refugees and Expellees in Post-War Germany, Manchester University Press, 2007, p. 126
  12. 1 2 Connor, Refugees and Expellees, p. 127
  13. ↑ Connor, Refugees and Expellees, p. 128
  14. 1 2 3 Grosser, Germany in Our Time, p. 253
  15. ↑ Grosser, Germany in Our Time, pp. 252-253
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